LABORING DAY

         We are down to our last half-bag of Marrowbones, my dog's second favorite treat. The cat litter is getting low. Time to put a little excitement in our lives. Time to take an after dinner trip to Sam Walton's emporium in East Greenbush.

         The dog can't go inside, but she seems to be the only creature in Rensselaer County who is not cramming the aisles and lining up at the checkout counters. I forget it is back-to-school sale week. I consider turning around and going home, but I am here and I find the litter and put two boxes in the cart. Farfel's particular treats are hidden away on a top shelf. I can reach one bag, but I am too short-armed to grab others.

         The shelves, filled to the edges with other doggie goodies, look solid. I decide to work without safety equipment and forgo using pickaxes to cut footholds. I climb up and, with one hand holding the top shelf, toss four more bags into my cart. The thought that this edifice could topple over does not hit me until after the last bag has landed in the cart and I am hanging in space.

         What a way to go! "Walmart Associate, bring a body bag to aisle 7." I would hope someone would remember my dog out in the car. I descend carefully, get in a long line and pay for my necessities. It is getting dark as we drive home. In June it is light at nine, but now at eight the moon is very visible. The cat is waiting in the window as we enter the driveway. The house beckons.

         I put the bags on the counter and am starting to unload when the phone rings. It's Rhonda, my brother-in-law Peter's long time companion, making a 'Gosh, we should really call to see how David is doing' connection. I am happy to hear from her and tell her all is fine. Then I launch a twenty-minute filibuster about life in general and about my grass widowerhood.

         She tells me that Peter has been having it hard dealing with his sister's death. There are no more messages on his machine telling him, "It is your sister, Peter." Though they were ten years apart in age, and he was her stepbrother, they were wonderful friends. I tell Rhonda it is probably easier for me because I saw Morgan every day and witnessed her decline, so that her death came as a release.

         They would like to see me some time. I laugh and tell her I expect to become America's guest, invited to fill out tables for holidays so that there is not as many leftovers. She then brings me up to date on the schedule at the cabin, where I must go to bury Morgan’s ashes. Cathy, Morgan's cousin, who was supposed to spend time there after Labor Day, has called Rhonda and Peter to tell them she will not be going after all. So now the path is clear for me to travel there next week or the week after.

         As she talks, my bile rises; I tell Rhonda I am glad Cathy won't be there. I do not want to see her. She turned back on the day of the wake because of rain that did not stop other people who drove the same road. She has always been someone who reduces everything to her convenience. Rhonda tells me that Peter feels the same way as me. I tell her I dread the inevitable 'we should call David' call from her some day around a holiday. We giggle. There is nothing like a little backbiting to make the evening fun.

         All the while my eye is on a Fedex box on the table. It is Karl's tax papers, or part of them, that came today. Karl is a bit behind in his taxes, maybe three years, maybe four. He called in the morning to warn me it was coming and spent an hour talking of his ailing Dad, his new love interest and my life and failing prospects. "Do the taxes when you have the time." I promise I shall work on them this weekend.

         The day before, Bob had called out of the blue. Bob only has two years to do. His wife had called the week before worried she would be caught up in an IRS dragnet. Bob tells me he will be overnighting a package to arrive Friday and asks if we can work on it that afternoon. As he talks, I think 'why this rush all of a sudden'. "Friday is no dice, Bob", so he asks about Saturday or Sunday of this weekend. Now I begin to dig in my heels. I tell him I have plans. It will be late this coming week, if I can clear the time then

         "But I told the IRS I would have it done by the 31st." He is a little peeved. Bob is a sort of executive, used to directing people. I am a free agent, a hired gun, and I work on my terms. I could tell him were he a gentleman like Karl, I would be glad to jump right in, but now I tell him I must plan a ceremony. He is not very happy when he hangs up.

         Rhonda and I finish. My eye looks at the calendar. If I wait until the sixteenth for the burial, Peter and Rhonda will be there. She suggested this, and this time it is different than the obligatory proffer, "if there is anything I can do to help, let me know" that follows a death. I have become a mourning professional, to a point where I reply; "Do you do windows?" I know it is part of the process, but my seeming smart-ass response is my way to say, 'I know you are playing your designated role, and I appreciate it, but let's not carry this too far."

         I know I will get itchy feet before the sixteenth and drive there alone. I might ask the undertaker to give me a "funeral' sticker to put on my windshield, or a piece of plastic for the roof, so that I can zoom through the four traffic signals between here and Piercefield, almost two hundred miles from here. I will take the dog to stand guard and watch for black bears that are more prolific in the mountains this year. Then we will get in the car and drive home.

         Until Rhonda called, the whole affair was beginning to seem like a lark, a day away from the grind. I do not want it to take on the aspects of closure, another meaningless buzzword of our time. The ash filled gold can is not Morgan, nor is it a symbol of her whether it sits on a shelf here or is buried in the ground.

         A birthday card she drew over seven years ago hangs on my office wall. A mustachioed man in the wide-brimmed black hat and cape, looking a bit like Walmart’s Rollo, sits with the collie-shepherd next to him in the foreground. Inscribed on it is, “Because you make my tomorrows SO SPECIAL.” That is closure that Sam Walton doesn’t sell.


Valatie August 31, 2001